Limiting Grants to Well-Funded Labs
While no one is arguing for funding failure, the challenge is how we define “success.”
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On Basic and Applied Science – and Red Herrings
Whatever we call it, investment in research will lead the way to important short- and long-term discoveries.
UK’s Powerful Funding Body Takes Shape
UK’s newly minted unified funding agency has released the first outline of its strategy. The long-awaited document gives the nation’s researchers an insight into how the mega-funding agency - which will command a budget of GBP6 billion (USD8 billion) - will work.
Billionaires Are Rushing into Biotech. Inequality Is Following Them into Science
Billionaires Are Rushing into Biotech. Inequality Is Following Them into Science
In this era of billionaires and unequal funding, where is research going? And perhaps more importantly, how will our changing resources affect the training, success, and diversity of the scientists of our future?
What was Missing in Australia's $1.9 Billion Infrastructure Announcement
What was Missing in Australia's $1.9 Billion Infrastructure Announcement
It’s not hard to get excited over money that will support imaging of the Earth, or the Atlas of Living Australia. But important as these projects are, there’s a whole set of infrastructure that rarely gets mentioned or noticed: “soft” infrastructure. These are the services, policies or practices that keep academic research working and, now, open.
Money talks
With detailed proposals on the next R&D programme due within weeks, MEP Christian Ehler, the European Parliament’s Horizon 2020 lead, explained his priorities to Ben Upton.
Budget 2018: When Scientists Make Their Case Effectively, Politicians Listen
Ministers prepare to debate Horizon Europe
EU research ministers will meet at the end of the month to debate how the EU’s next R&D programme, Horizon Europe, can help address the bloc’s societal and economic challenges.
Australian Budget Delivers for Science Facilities and Medical Research
Research facilities and medicine were among the winners for science in Australia's 2018/19 national budget. The government will push to invest almost Aus$1.9 billion (US$1.4 billion) over the next 12 years in shared research infrastructure. Scientists welcome relative windfall after years of stagnating funds.
Luck of the Draw
Funders should assign research grants via a lottery system to reduce human bias, says Dorothy Bishop.
Report Harassment or Risk Losing Funding, Says Top UK Science Funder
The Wellcome Trust vows to pull grants if researchers or institutions do not abide by its new misconduct policy.
Federal Partners Release Interagency Strategic Plan for Microbiome Research
A group of 23 U.S. government agencies, including the NSF, have joined to produce the Interagency Strategic Plan for Microbiome Research, which outlines the objectives, structure and principles for coordinated research in this important field of study.
Scientists' Early Grant Success Fuels Further Funding
A new paper suggests that positive feedback in funding may be a key mechanism through which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few extremely successful scholars, but also that the origins of emergent distinction in scientists' careers may be of an arbitrary nature.
The Matthew Effect in Science Funding
Article suggesting that positive feedback in funding may be a key mechanism through which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few extremely successful scholars, but also that the origins of emergent distinction in scientists' careers may be of an arbitrary nature. (The article is closed access and requires a subscription to view the full text legally.)
Military Work Threatens Science and Security
In an uncertain world, more governments are asking universities to help develop weapons. That’s a threat to the culture and conscience of researchers.
Peer Review Processes Risk Stifling Creativity and Limiting Opportunities for Game-Changing Scientific Discoveries
Peer Review Processes Risk Stifling Creativity and Limiting Opportunities for Game-Changing Scientific Discoveries
Obviously peer review should not be abandoned entirely, but it is time to recognise the need for a separate category of highly innovative research with appropriate funding.
Results of the FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot
For a period of almost 3 years, the OpenAIRE2020 project has run - on behalf of the European Commission - a pilot to fund post-grant Open Access publication of research outputs arising from projects financed under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7).
Is Science Hitting a Wall?
Economists show increased research efforts are yielding decreasing returns. Too much innovation veneration! One driver of the replication crisis is our culture’s growing obsession with “innovation.” As technology historians Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell state in their influential Aeon essay Hail the Maintainers: “Entire societies have come to talk about innovation as if it were an inherently desirable value."
Philanthropists, Nonprofit Executives And Board Members Must Awaken To The Dawn Of The Impact Era
Philanthropists, Nonprofit Executives And Board Members Must Awaken To The Dawn Of The Impact Era
We are entering a new era - the Impact Era - where increasingly philanthropists are grounding their generosity in decisions focused on having a real social impact. And, in response, nonprofit organizations are learning to refocus their strategies to maximize that impact.
From Babies' Brains to Bacterial Warfare: ERC Invests €650 Million in Ground-Breaking Research
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